This Saturday Sainsbury’s Newton Abbott store was visited by a herd of 12 cattle, who were intent on gently warning shoppers about Sainbury’s continued sale of dairy products from GM feed cows. The cows, who simply walked the aisles with trolleys, were met with amusement and support from the hordes of the bank holiday shoppers. A questionnaire conducted outside the store revealed that 97% of shoppers definitely wanted Sainsbury’s to stop using GM feed, and none actively wanted them to use it. There was unanimous agreement that farmers should receive a better percentage of the shelf price. The group are part of an alliance of farming and food pressure groups, who have been protesting for over 6 months now. Sainsbury’s, under pressure caused by this and similar actions, are now selling a trail range of Non-GM fed milk at stores in the southeast. Saturdays action coincided with the companies announcement that the trial results showed considerable demand for the product, and they would therefore be extending the non GM fed range to half of their stores.

However, the alliance is far from satisfied with these results, Robert Vint from Genetic Food Alert said:
“Three years ago Sainsbury’s promised it would phase out the use of all GM feed, now they’re trying to sell a limited range at five pence extra per pint, without giving farmers any of that increase in profits. Safe food is a right not a privilege. We need non-GM fed milk as standard and we need farmers to be paid a decent price for their product, anything else is just whitewashing.”

The cows wandered around inside the store for nearly an hour with ‘GM fed dairy, untested, unlabelled and in Sainsburys’ and ‘support farmers, not GM’ pinned to their hides. The store responded by broadcasting a statement on company policy over the tannoy. Kat, a young mum protesting with her calf explained:

“Sainsbury’s were trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes by saying that there are no GM genes in their milk. But no one is claiming that there are. What I’m concerned about is that Sainsbury’s ordinary milk comes from cows fed GM, a process that has never undergone independent safety tests. After BSE it’s only reasonable to be worried about what cows are eating, and with no labelling of these products, people don’t have a choice.”